Wangles

Join Date 08/2009

A buncha newbie questions

(I hope this is the right place to post.)

I felt like making my own skins but I hardly know what I'm doing so I've got a few questions. First thing that's bugging me is, what's the difference between a theme, a visual style and a skin?

So far, I found a tutorial on how to make a custom visual style.

I duplicated my Aero theme files and I'm trying to mess around with them. And I get that I'm suppose to be replacing the resources with my own images, so if I extract the images from the msstyle and draw over them and replace the original with the new ones, will that work?

Is saving as a png with transparency in Photoshop pretty much the same as using Alpha Image converter?

What should I use to extract? The tutorial I'm looking at says to use Restorator 2007 but what should I use when the trial runs out? I use RezHacker to look at and replace stuff but saving images always ends up with an .rc and a .txt full of numbers. (Though I remember I use to be able to extract images somehow, maybe I forgot.)

And finally, what are shellstyle.dll, shellstyle.dll.mui, *.msstyle.mui for?

beginners

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ZubaZ

Join Date 11/2001

+917

Using SkinStudio to create visual styles (also called skins and themes) is fairly easy. {Making good ones is much harder. } It requires no file hacking.

Then you can use Windowblinds to apply them.

Resources:

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4256

I'll try my hand at a few:

A Skin and skinning one's system is a more general term. A Blind, or Windowblind is a type of skin applied with the program Windowblinds created by Stardock Corp. which runs this site thru a nice fella named Jafo, and is Moderated in it's content (Forums and Galleries) by a bunch of meanies called Mods (or Moderators)...lol...actually they are a bunch of guys/gals who are senior members of the Community.

A Visual Style can be a Windowblind or msstyle, Winstep theme, etc. There are other programs you can use 'to skin' your computer's gui like Winstep, and msstyles, etc.

Your last line asks a question about how they do it...by altering system files (msstyles...etc) by substituting a file instead of what comes with your computer. Windowblinds and Winstep don't alter your files. They reside in your RAM. They are far more desirable for that reason.

Above, Zubaz tells you a lot in very few words... If wish you can download trial versions of some programs from Stardock.com and a free graphics program called Gimp from the net, and play around. Skinning is really hard, though and only very few do it well.

Here's a good link where you can learn about the programs and how they work... The Wiki... LINK.

There are generalities and inaccuracies in my answer which folks who know lots more than me will whack me for, but I thought I could get you going on your search for answers.

Smiles... doc.

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